Relentless sarcasm for your reading pleasure

Chopped

I must confess that I’ve been watching this show for the last three seasons. I truly don’t know what half of the ingredients are which are placed in the contestants’ baskets, and that intrigues me.

One episode had an appetizer basket filled with pupusas, blowfish tails, black beans, and horchata liqueor.

What?

Okay–pupusas is not registering with me. Horchata liqueor sounds like something you drink one shot of and your throat ends up in a blaze of glory.

I can bet you twenty dollars that if I walked into my neighborhood Mariano’s grocery store, which is a well-known grocery chain around “these parts”, the produce guy will have absolutely no clue as to what a pupusas is. I checked dictionary.com and it doesn’t even come up in their search results. I resorted to Google. I can always trust Google! Pupusas is something similar to corn tortillas, only thicker and stuffed with cheese, beans or meat.

I hope that’s eaten hot and not cold.

If anyone out there is a chef, please answer me this question: have you ever prepared blowfish tails? Does anyone eat blowfish tails? And, don’t tell me they taste like chicken.

Once there was an entrée basket filled with meatloaf mix, sweet potatoes, green beans, and an Old Fashioned cocktail. What on earth can you possibly make with this basket? Even though I fully knew what each ingredient was, my creativity stops where the opening of the Chopped food basket starts.

My mouth drops open first. I look at the faces of the contestants to see if there is anyone panicking. Some have readily admitted they have never tried a certain vegetable or jam before, but they develop this intrinsic and inspired idea–either from their upbringing or from years over a hot stove–to turn those simple, every day items you can get at your local grocery store into a bursting food emporium in your mouth.

I don’t have any blowfish tails residing in my freezer. If I had, someone would be dead by now because I wouldn’t have prepared the poisonous fish properly, and I don’t want to have a homicide(s) on my hands. It will take up too much of my time and I will not be able to continue blogging from the big house–I also do not rock the color orange very well. Does anyone?